


ELIZABETH

by juggyjones



Series: riverdale: SHAME [1]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017), SKAM (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Riverdale, SKAM, Self-Harm, betty is the primary focus, it kind of follows the riverdale plotline but not really, skam format
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-17 10:06:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11273286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juggyjones/pseuds/juggyjones
Summary: ❛ i've been facing trouble almost all my life. ❜betty cooper used to be riverdale high's best student.that was before archie andrews.before jughead jones.before veronica lodge.betty cooper isn't really anything anymore.❛ my sweet love, won't you pull me through? ❜





	1. BETTY

**_A_** girl is sitting in a diner with a laptop before her, fingers resting on the keyboard. She’s sipping a strawberry milkshake that doesn't smear her lipstick, and she’s smiling at the people around her.

 ** _THE_**  diner is dimly lit, the moon just taking over the day from the sun is peeking through the clouds and her eyes are tired from hours spent staring at a computer screen, but she’s happy. The people around her — they’re quiet and loud, each with their own story that she’ll never get to know.

 **SHE**  is a writer. Sixteen and doesn’t know much, but poetry in prose and flowers in the shape of words breed beneath her fingertips, and she’s a maestro of the stories she unfolds. It’s all a thin thread she’s following, a path she had chosen before she said her first word; it’s all coincidences and instances, as she says, that lead to great things.

 ** _THE_**  first of the great things in her life that set off a chain of events irreversible by anyone was the return of her long lost love and her determination to put all the cards on the table. Because she might not know much and because she might be sixteen, she’s not an expert in life. There is one thing that she has set in stone, written in the stars and carved into the back of her mind — the only god in her life is  **BETTY COOPER**  herself.

**__ **

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! welcome to riverdale, SKAM edition.  
> the first part focuses on betty and it's season one, also known as the first work in this collection. it will follow some major points from riverdale, i'll try to stay as true to the characters as i can, but don't rely on having watched the tv show to know what'll happen in here.  
> chapters will be equivalent to clips, but won't be posted in real time. sometimes there might be snippets of text messages, too.  
> if you have any suggestions/comments, leave them in the comments. thanks for reading!


	2. do you think being a quarterback is the right thing for you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EPISODE ONE : CHAPTER ONE

Betty stares at herself in the mirror, then at the clock above it, then at the window opposite of hers, then back at the mirror.

She takes in a deep breath and tells herself it’s going to be all right. He’s only seven minutes late and he’s absolutely  _always_  late and she looks just fine. White blazer, denim jeans and a peach top with just a little bit of lip gloss, and hair pulled up into a neat and high ponytail.

Yeah, she looks the same as any other day.

Against her will, she checks the clock.  _Nine minutes late_. Still nothing unusual for him; Betty brushes her hands against her thighs, as if trying to rid of the dirt on them.

(They’ve just come out of the dryer and she’s ironed them and they’re  _fine_.)

She sits on her bed for another two or three minutes. It feels like each second is taking an hour from her lifespan and doing nothing is more exhausting than cheerleading, so she takes up cleaning her room.

(It’s already squeaky clean — as it always is — but moving things around the empty space makes her feel like she’s accomplishing  _something_.)

When it’s been a total of thirteen minutes past six, Betty washes her face with cold water and reapplies her makeup. Again, just mascara and just lip gloss, because she’s never been the one to go over the top like some girls.

Her mother comes into her bedroom some minutes later, wearing a scowl on her face that didn’t need words to tell Betty  _that_   _redheaded friend of hers_ has arrived.

Betty smiles. “Thanks, mom.” She kisses her mother on the cheek and promises to be home by ten.

Alice Cooper doesn’t say anything, only nods, and it briefly crosses Betty’s mind that she rarely needs to hear her mother say something to know what she means. For a little longer she calculates her mother’s mood to know when she needs to leave Pop’s and figures, by the thinness of her lips and the tone of the imagined ‘ _redheaded_   _friend_ ’, it’s going to be some time earlier than usual.

When she closes the door of the house, she flashes a brilliant, full-teeth smile to the boy standing on the porch. At around six feet, he’s not much taller than the bright blonde, but it’s his newly-established built that makes him seem bigger. Even his hair is longer, tousled and could be described less as  _ginger_  and more  _auburn,_ no longer making him someone who could be objected to taunts and insults regarding it.

Betty isn’t staring.

“Hey, Betty,” Archie greets her. Less than one point seven seconds later, she’s engulfed in a bear hug crushing her bones. “I’ve missed you, tons.”

“I missed you, too,” she says once she’s out of his grip.

He asks her about the journalist internship she’s been at in New York and she tells him about it, briefly and excitedly, as they make their way over to Pop’s Chock’lit Shoppe. The air is chilly, August coming to a close, and Betty can’t quite tell if she’s cold of warm. She attributes it to the summer rain that’s fallen only hours before, and the high moisture in the air.

(She is hyper aware of every inch of her right hand, where Archie’s collides with it every now and then. She’s sweating and  _god, she doesn't smell, does she_ and it’s warm and cold at the same time. He doesn’t notice, which is as expected.)

Once they’re inside, Betty lets him order for both of them. “One chocolate and one strawberry shake,” he tells the waiter — it’s not Pop Tate, but it passes her thoughts as if it hadn’t — and she feels happier than whole summer.

Well, almost. There was one instance in which she felt like her heart would explode, but that’s not something she could tell him without boring him.

(Betty knows Archie isn’t interested in journalism or her career as a journalist. All he does is ask because he’s polite and kind and considerate of the interests of his closest friends.)

_Friends._

Betty scowls at the thought and takes a long sip through the straw. Archie hasn’t noticed the momentary shift of the girl across him as he talks about his football career, something she’s asked him about.

“I’m going to try out for quarterback this year,” says Archie. Betty’s eyes are glued to his, the hazel brown somehow seemingly the same colour as his hair. He's smiling and she feels his excitement in her chest. “I'm not sure they’re going to let Jason Blossom come back after what happened.”

Betty nods. Behind her closed eyelids, less than a heartbeat, she sees her mother with their town newspaper, _The Register_ , and bold black, capital letters  _RIVERDALE’S GOLDEN BOY TRIES TO KILL HIMSELF_.

She shifts in her seat, back flat against the seat. “You’ve been practicing?”

“A little,” Archie admits. Soft redness is creeping onto his cheeks, and even this flustered, he makes Betty fluster. “I’ve mostly worked for Dad and I tried practicing with Jughead, but then... yeah.”

At that, Betty raises a brow, but doesn’t push. She never pushes people if they don’t want to say something.

“Then the fourth of July happened,” she whispers, more to herself than Archie.

Neither of them says anything next, sipping their own milkshake.

Betty uses this time to think. When it was Jason’s picture in the newspaper, Archie’s face flashed over his for just long enough to make her heart stiffen and to make her realize she doesn’t ever want to lose him. He looks so buff now, with broad shoulders and nearly two inches he’s gained during the summer, but it’s still the same fragile boy. It’s the boy who looks like the next Jason Blossom and the only thing keeping her from believing he could become it is the fact that he’s the epitome of kindness.

She looks at him, eyes lost in thought, half covered by the tousled hair, staring off through the window.

_He’s going to be crushed by the real next Jason Blossoms._

Betty reaches out to him, covering his hand with her own. He looks at her and there’s a shiver going doing her spine and  _yep, she’s smiling too wide_ but it’s nothing compared to what she’s about to do.

“Archie,” she says in the smallest of voices, “do you…” She knows what she means to say, except the words are stuck in her throat and refuse to leave until she swallows them, along with her short-lived confidence.

Archie doesn’t pick up on this, either, as he’s still smiling like a big puppy he is. “Do I what?”

“Do you think being a quarterback is the right thing for you?” asks Betty. She withdraws her hand from his and puts on a smile, leaning back again. It feels like there’s cold sweat on her forehead and she, yet again, hopes he doesn’t notice. “If you’re going to do music, maybe playing football isn’t so smart.”

Her best friend brushes it off with a shake of head and a sip of his milkshake, then a grin the size of Europe. “Don’t worry about it, Betty. I can do whatever I want to, if I _really_ want it.”

Betty doesn’t have the heart to tell Archie the real world is anything but that simple.


End file.
